In 1934, The Yellow Jack, co-written by Sidney Howard, a Pulitzer- and Oscar-winning playwright and screenwriter, and Paul de Kruif, an American microbiologist and author of the The Microbe Hunters, was published. The Yellow Jack was an historical drama about Walter Reed and the war against yellow fever.

Before becomgin a writer, de Kruif conducted front-line bacteriological research at Michigan University (Ph.D. 1916); served as a US medical corps officer during the First World War in France; and later worked at the Rockefeller Institute, New York.